“If you’re on the side of the oppressor, or you’re defending the oppressor, or you’re actually trying to humanize the oppressor, then that’s a problem.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We show up to fight racism, anti-black racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, patriarchy, anti-Semitism, because after Donald Trump is out of office, there will still be all those things here.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I hope that we when we stand up to those who oppress our communities that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Women need to find the courage to demand what they rightfully deserve. Women should be paid for the same work as their male counterparts, ask for promotions, and stand in their power in their place of employment, whether they are in a boardroom or in the movement.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I will not walk away from the people and communities whom I love deeply. I will continue to raise my voice for justice and equality for all, organize communities who want to defend the rights of black people, stand against policies that target and marginalize Muslims, and advocate for health care for all people.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We are rooted in Kingian nonviolence.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Americans – in general, we are very steadfast people: we know what we want; we get what we want.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Minister Farrakhan absolutely says anti-Semitic, misogynistic and homophobic remarks. And we have unequivocally rejected all forms of racism and hate, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc.”
― Linda Sarsour
“My work has always been rooted in nonviolence, as espoused by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I haven’t given up on my country. I believe in the potential. I believe in the Constitution.”
― Linda Sarsour
“The progressive Left is sometimes very uncomfortable for staunch pro-Israel supporters, but what’s very clear to me is that the progressive Left does not make Jews feel unsafe.”
― Linda Sarsour
“If you woke up this morning and you are breathing, and you are Muslim, then you are political. You have no choice but to be political in a country that has politicized you and politicized your religion.”
― Linda Sarsour
“When you talk about feminism, you’re talking about the rights of all women and their families to live in dignity, peace, and security. It’s about giving women access to health care and other basic rights.”
― Linda Sarsour
“My Pandora station is Boyz II Men.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Sharia is, for me, a personal basic set of guidelines that Muslims follow. It’s about being respectful to elders. It’s about praying five times a day. It’s about etiquette that I have with members of my family. It’s about inheritance, and it’s about how we get married. Just the kind of basic things that anyone engages in in life.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Alleviating suffering of the most marginalized communities must begin with assessing the needs of entire communities and allowing the most marginalized to lead the strategy. My belief is those closest to the pain are closest to the solution.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I believe in a nonviolent movement of boycott, divestment, sanctions.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I didn’t wake up one morning and become some important person.”
― Linda Sarsour
“What’s wrong is wrong, and that’s absolutely acceptable, and I understand that people get hurt by things that people say that are hurtful, and we should be able to say that when someone says something that hurts us, that it hurts us.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I began my work as director of the Arab American Association of New York in the wake of the horrific attacks of 9/11.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, and I intend to continue to push my country to respect the rights of all its citizens. I will not be silenced.”
― Linda Sarsour
“It just doesn’t make any sense for someone to say, ‘Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement?’ There can’t be in feminism. You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There’s just no way around it.”
― Linda Sarsour
“You’ve probably seen that any visible Palestinian-American woman who is at the forefront of any social-justice movement is an immediate target of the right wing and right-wing Zionists. They will go to any extreme to criminalize us and to engage in alternative facts, to sew together a narrative that does not exist.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Being a Muslim American activist, I’ve been targeted by the right wing in a way that is very dangerous.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I believe that this is the land of religious freedom and that that applies to Muslims. And if I have to make it apply to Muslims with the work that I do, I’m going to do that.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to say things I may not understand have hurtful impact on people. I always call people to call me in, to educate me. And to love me enough and to see my contributions in a way that, when I become better, our country becomes better.”
― Linda Sarsour
“It’s not enough just to elect people of color and women of color and progressives. We need to make sure that they have a work plan and that they are – continue to align with the communities that helped get them to where they’re at.”
― Linda Sarsour
“When I stand up here, and I’m fighting for your rights and the rights of all people in these United States of America, I am a true patriot.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Jared Kushner is the last person that should be trying to bring peace to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
― Linda Sarsour
“The Palestinian people were governing themselves before the creation of the State of Israel.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m not going to hide my positions to make anyone else feel comfortable.”
― Linda Sarsour
“There are no perfect leaders.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We will protect our constitutional right to boycott, divest, and sanctions in this country.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m the national co-chair for the Women’s March on Washington.”
― Linda Sarsour
“My family is originally from Palestine, who came here to the United States, you know, from an occupied land to find a better life and find security and safety.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We have to, as a progressive movement, organize climate justice and reproductive rights and racial justice. We’ve got to do this. We can’t continue to organize in silos.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m impacted by my women’s reproductive rights.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Rudy Giuliani is a known racist Islamophobe.”
― Linda Sarsour
“People see whatever the media first reports.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Since when can somebody tell me a time or a case where there has been a Syrian refugee in this country who has committed an act of terror?”
― Linda Sarsour
“We will continue to organize. You have seen consistent organizing since the Women’s March on Washington in every corner of this country.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Reading a teleprompter is not what makes you presidential. It’s your actions that you take, and it’s democracy.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Slavery was legal. Japanese interment was legal in this country. Segregation was legal.”
― Linda Sarsour
“As one of the national organizers of the Women’s March back in 2017, immediately after the Women’s March, over 20,000 women across the country had registered to run for office – the largest numbers we’ve seen in probably our entire American history for women to run in this way.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Can we be against anti-Semitism and understand that it’s at the root of white supremacy? So you can’t tell me to combat anti-Semitism if you’re not ready to join me and tell me, ‘Let’s end white nationalism and white supremacy,’ which is really the real threat on all Americans.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Dan Donovan was the district attorney at one point who could not indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, who choked Eric Garner on video, for the whole country to watch, for the whole world to watch. And he actually, immediately after that, won a seat in Congress. He beat a Democrat to get into Congress.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I get to say I was alive when the first Palestinian woman went to Congress. I was alive when the first Somali woman, in a hijab, who’s black and Muslim – she’s literally an immigrant, a refugee, black and Muslim and a woman and progressive.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We are taught to attack the forces of evil and not those doing evil. That is what we are trained in.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’ve been working with Jews for over 20 years.”
― Linda Sarsour
“One of the things that makes me horrified about a Trump administration is the continued use of code words like ‘law and order.’”
― Linda Sarsour
“I think Bernie Sanders is a realist.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We, as Palestinian-Americans… will not change who we are to make anyone comfortable.”
― Linda Sarsour
“There is no country in this world that is immune to violating human rights.”
― Linda Sarsour
“You can’t be a feminist in the United States and stand up for the rights of the American woman and then say that you don’t want to stand up for the rights of Palestinian women in Palestine. It’s all connected.”
― Linda Sarsour
“BDS has been used as a tactic to raise awareness for Palestinian people, including women and their children.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Look, yes, I’m a Muslim woman and I want to bring my community to the table, but I also want to make sure that I’m not being tokenized.”
― Linda Sarsour
“You have to understand when you’re organizing with women of color, you can’t use words like ‘marginalized’ and ‘second-class citizen’ loosely.”
― Linda Sarsour
“There are plenty of Muslim women who are backbones of the community, but they aren’t usually at the forefront. There just aren’t a lot of me out there – women in hijabs, doing what I do.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Sometimes, it seems like the whole world has already set my life out for me.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I have a very resilient Brooklyn personality that allows me to stay thick-skinned and focused on my mission and goals.”
― Linda Sarsour
“As an activist, organizer, Palestinian, and a Muslim-American woman, I have faced many obstacles in the industry I work in. I often have to fight for my seat and representation for the communities I represent.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m Muslim. I’m Palestinian. I’m a woman in a hijab.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Donald Trump has no idea what a deal is. I mean, he’s a man who has filed for bankruptcy many times, so he doesn’t understand how to make any deals.”
― Linda Sarsour
“This idea of me being anti-Semitic is the most ludicrous of them all.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I believe in the liberation of the Palestinian people.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We would never ask any other faith community to stand up and condemn acts of violence committed by people within their groups. The fact that this is only directed at the Muslim community is something that I personally can’t accept.”
― Linda Sarsour
“One of the areas that many of us, including the Women’s March organizers, are focusing on is starting mass voter registration and voter engagement.”
― Linda Sarsour
“People have been skeptical of the Women’s March on Washington. Our legitimacy only came from us proving to the rest of the world that we’re capable.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Time and time again, organizers have proved that when we work together, when we organize together, that we can win.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I have been part of fights where we have been told, ‘You will not win,’ and we have won.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I was the head of fundraising for the Women’s March, and I chose not to take money from corporations.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I am the most optimistic organizer in this country.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I was on the steering committee of the New York City Coalition on Muslim School Holidays.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I have my own support network of other organizers, activists, and attorneys.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We have our own agency; we should be judged by our own work.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I think the Women’s March is actually reflective of this idea that you can create a big tent, but that doesn’t mean the people inside of the tent are going to agree on everything. In fact, they might have very public fights about the things that they don’t agree with.”
― Linda Sarsour
“It makes me sad that our kids are growing up in a country where they are American but, in a sense, have to prove it. They can’t just be who they are like everyone else. Who they are is something suspicious, something scary, something misunderstood.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I care about affordable housing. I care about bus routes. I care about small business. I care about schools. These are not Muslim issues. Even protection of civil rights – that’s not just a Muslim issue. That is for everyone.”
― Linda Sarsour
“My American side makes me fearless.”
― Linda Sarsour
“There’s a conflation between the critique of the state of Israel and their policies with anti-Semitism, which I think is really flawed and inaccurate.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I have no problem with people challenging my views and my positions. I want to be clear that I’m not asking anybody to stop challenging me. But I will not accept being called an anti-Semite.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We will not be silenced by Blue Lives Matter, by white supremacists, by neo-Nazis, or right-wing Zionists.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Wearing hijab made you know that I was Muslim.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m a Palestinian-Muslim, but I’m also a progressive.”
― Linda Sarsour
“When you’re trying to inspire individuals across the country, you have to have a reflection that people can see themselves in.”
― Linda Sarsour
“If you have a march that’s entirely white women or a march that maybe is entirely black women, it’s going inspire those who look like them, which is fine. Our idea is that we want to inspire as diverse of a group of people as possible.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Do you care about climate justice? Are you about women’s rights and women’s reproductive rights? Do you care about civil liberties and the Voting Rights Act? There are so many opportunities for people to go back and be inspired and plug into their own community.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community. It is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Our obligation is to our young people, is to our women, to make sure our women are protected in our community.”
― Linda Sarsour
“The way you raise the profile of an issue is by making the issue cool and relevant in pop culture.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I wish that more of the celebrities, who are multi-millionaires, probably, are able to say to themselves, ‘Wow, my communities are under attack, and I need to give back to my community.’”
― Linda Sarsour
“I’m not just a token Muslim.”
― Linda Sarsour
“Intersectional organizing is the new agenda. And if we’re gonna lose, we’re gonna lose together. If we win, we’re gonna win together.”
― Linda Sarsour
“It is powerful to know what it feels like to be in community with people who will show up and fight for each other.”
― Linda Sarsour
“None of us live single-issue lives… That is why intersectionality is a strength, not a weakness.”
― Linda Sarsour
“I wholeheartedly believe that we can’t organize just as women. There has to be specific messaging and an issue prioritization based on identity groups. Because when you ask a black woman what her top priority issues are versus a white woman versus a Muslim woman versus an undocumented woman, you’re going to get… different answers.”
― Linda Sarsour
“We at the Women’s March tried intersectionality, and we were the group that said we’re going to do it right, and we’re going to defy our women-of-color elders who told us, ‘We did this with the white woman before, and it doesn’t work.’”
― Linda Sarsour
“We must stand together united in solidarity against the targeting, demonization, and vilification of any group of people.”
― Linda Sarsour
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